• People That Know More Than You -  Yes, believe it or not you will encounter many people that know more than you. Does it really matter? I have found that as long as you show value and dedication to the job it really does not matter. Programmers of all levels and experiences have value and can contribute to a company. It may be the dedication to complete a project or just the insight on a issue.

• People That Try To Tell You How To Control Your Career – Listen up, only you should control your career and make the decisions regarding it. Make your own decisions. If something goes wrong or right you take responsability for your own actions.  Those that try to give advice that have no career are the ones that give the worst advice whether it is wanted or not. They are jealous of your success. Those are the same people who will attempt to take advantage of you when they can.

• How To Do The Job – I have worked at around a half a dozen companies in the past few years mostly doing consulting work . I never know what to expect. At first it was coding and understanding the business. Now the major difficulty is understanding the requirements. A programmer will always struggle to get the job done that’s the way it goes. It gets easier the longer you have worked with a companies seemingly complex system.

The  ways above are My Top 3 Struggles As A Programmer.

My goal is now 6% ( (100% / 50) * 3 Books) completed.   Now I just have to finish the next 47 books and my goal will be achieved.

I’m also approaching the 2nd anniversary of starting this blog in March.  I can’t believe I’ve been blogging for almost 2 years now. Time sure does fly when you’re busy.

Have a happy and safe  New Year’s 2010!

• Manage My Career My Own Way: Don’t ever let others tell you how to manage your career. The only way to reach happiness in you career is to manage it how you deem best. If past experience tells you that something works better than do it that way.
• I Finally Let Go Of The Past: 2009 was hard at first until I finally decided to put my old life behind me. When I lived in Indiana I lived in a counterproductive environment that was difficult for me to grow personally and professionally. Learning to truly enjoy my life was something that I learned to do in the past year.
• Learning To Stay Current: It has always seemed like a challenge to stay current but in 2009 I learned it’s really not as hard as it seems. The secrets to staying current is really as hard as you make it or as easy as you make it be. If you have fun with it and keep doing something either hands on or reading that’s as hard as it is no more no less.
• Past Experience Is Usually Correct: I have been a programmer long enough to know that my past experience on a job usually proves correct. In 2009 a good majority of my assumptions on how to handle various situations has proved correct. I learned that my assumptions are usually correct.

I look forward to 2010 and I’m sure it will be just as good if not a better year than 2009 was.

My goal is now 4% ( (100% / 50) * 2 Books) completed.   Now I just have to finish the next 48 books and my goal will be achieved.

• Seeing What The Market Is Like For Your Skills – I have  tested the market time and time again while employed just to see what the market is like for my background. Call it curiosity but I am always looking for better and more promising opportunities. I don’t really ever thing I would be happy at least knowing if I could not make more money, work in a better location or have better fringe benefits.
• Decide Whether To Stay Or Move On - I have worked in several companies where I just was totally unhappy or not satisfied where I was in my career. By knowing where you stand you can see if it’s a good decision to stay with your current company or look elsewhere. There is no point staying where you are if you know you can do better elsewhere.
• Testing Your Resume – You really do not have to respond to any new opportunity but you get a chance to see how effective your resume is. If you don’t like the results you can try rewriting it and see if the rewrite helps.  Keeping your resume current is a great way to help size up the competition.

These are The Benefits Of Sizing Up The Competition. Every so often when I am curious about the current market I size up the competition by testing my resume to see where I stand.  Usually it’s a huge confidence booster for me and feel much  better after. You can follow this or not but keeping aware of the market can only help you.

My goal is now 2% ( (100% / 50) * 1 Book) completed. While it may seem I have such a long way to go every book helps put me 1 step closer to reaching my goal.

In the coming months my plan is to purchase a Amazon Kindle which will allow me to more easily and quickly enable to read more books faster. It’s not the easiest thing in the world trying to hold and read a 400-500+ page computer book comfortably.  Storing them and finding them is another matter as well.  Getting a Kindle should solve most of these problems in the coming months.

I have come to a  reasonable solution to my problem. I can and will read way more books than I have been reading. I will set myself to a realistic goal of reading 50 computer books by January 1, 2015 . Doing this will allow me to be a more confident and knowledgeable programmer than I am now. I will keep updated on my progress in this blog to show how close I am to reaching this goal.